Chihuly Patchouli

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.  

John Updike

 

A few weeks ago I took a break from my home -- the fraternity house -- and drove north to Dallas to see my long-time friend, Savannah. You might recall her from previous posts. We go way back to the early 80's in Denver where we played softball together  and both worked in the oil bidness.

In April, Vanna had flown up to Green Bay to help my brothers and me empty my mom and dad's house. After that fun, I was eager to visit with her in a less emotional setting. 

When you live with a bunch of men, as I do, it is always a pleasure to have extended time with women friends. Women look at me when I speak and appear to comprehend what comes out of my mouth. They respond.

Always shocks me.

But Vanna and I did more than just chat for hours on end. We did stuff, too. Fort Worth is a very cool city. I'd always heard it called Cow Town, but it wasn't no Cow Town in the museum district. Our first stop was the Kimbell Art Museum to see the touring exhibit The Age of Impressionism: Great French Paintings from the Clark. (I like the way that makes me sound like an art snob, which I'm not.)

The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts has many fine impressionist paintings. This tour brought many with them. I do like many other artists, but I'm true to the Impressionists. (I love the books of the era also.) Renoir is my favorite and I wasn't disappointed by what I saw.

I had never seen either of these, but both became favorites. My guess the collector's favorites also?

And this one, by Berthe Morisot. 

But you can only handle so much great art in one day. With an eye to all the museums in this area, we planned a return visit and pondered lunch. We headed to what Fort Worth was really all about way back when - the Stockyards.

We had a fabulous hamburger and a beer.

 

We got propositioned by a couple of guys to go over and get a room with them here, but, no, Vanna didn't want to.

We ended up here, checking out where they hold the ROOODEEOOO.

You can only have so much fun in one day so after a return to Dallas we got a good night's sleep and spent the next day at the Dallas Arboretum where a Chihuly show was going on.

Who is Chihuly? Yes, I was ignorant enough to have to ask that question. Sounded like some Chilean, Italian, or Chinese guy to me. Neither my arboretum guidebook or the docent standing nearby   overflowed with information. (I did my own research when I got home.)

For those of you as unaware as me - Dale Chihuly is a renowned sculptor of glass. You can find out more here. Turns out he's American - his family long ago emigrated from what was once Czechoslovakia. Chihuly resulted from some Slavic name. I have one of those, too. My maiden name -- Sucha.

At this special exhibit, Chihuly's glass sculptures were installed throughout the botanical gardens. I've never been a huge fan of Murano/Venetian glass art. I'm still not quite certain what I think. How about you?

Pretty. Like the blue. Like the mist.

Bad hair day?

These creeped me out. Sort of like the horns on Cinderella's stepsisters' ball hats.

Colorful. Fun. Odd.

Incredible view. Carnival!

I hate to say, but I liked the real live blooming lilies better. One of my favorites though.

Pretty. Flowing.

What is it with me? Why do I have friends that are petite and 5'2" and I always feel like the Jolly Green Giant standing next to them?

Remember at the end of the first episode of Lonesome Dove? When the nice, young Irish guy is afraid to cross the river on his horse? And then he does? And the mating ball of water moccasins kill him?

Hey, we're in Dallas. Did you think you were gonna get out of here without seeing the Dallas star?

 (Packers Rule!)

Then, just when I wasn't certain what to think, we came across a series of little houses with artist names attached to them that I understood. Here's the Georges Seurat house. They had a Picasso, Van Gogh, O'Keefe, too. For little kids. And me.

 Monet's bridge in Giverny.

Monet house. That guy standing there? I ran out of patience waiting for a clear shot. His children weren't listening to him. He wanted them on the bridge for a picture. Don't you hate that when people don't listen to you?

What would an artistic weekend be without beautiful food? Blueberry souffle anyone?

How about a Bananas Foster souffle? Decadent.

Okay, these photo essays exhaust me. Take me 20 times longer than using my words. Plus, we've arrived at the end of the story. I had to drive home and go back to my house that smells like a bunch of boys live there. In a much better mood though.

 

Thanks Vanna.

What's On Your Summer Reading List?

I find television to be very educating.  Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.  

Groucho Marx

I know, I know. It is now July and I'm finally posting  my summer reading list. Goes right along with my total laxness in the blogging world at present. 

Not to say I haven't been productive. I am working on my novel again. And the toilets in my house are clean. So rare to have both of those things run concurrently. 

I have been reading, too, although not as quickly as normal. Here is my stack for the summer. 

The Greater Journey - David McCullough

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) - Laurie Notaro (More than a giggle and chuckle. Hawhawing from the dock.)

The Tiger's Wife - A Novel - Tea Obreht

Final Payments - Mary Gordon

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Julia Alvarez

Suite Francaise - Irene Neverosky

When Everything Changed - The Amazing Journey of American Women 1960 to Present - Gail Collins (a must read for all young women, young men, old men, everyone!)

Close Range - Annie Proulx

Clair de Lune - Jetta Carleton (From rediscovered author of The Moonflower Vine)

Beloved - Toni Morrison (I know - been on my list every summer. Maybe this summer?)

The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (I loved this one.) 
As Texas Goes...: How the Lonestar State Hijacked the American Agenda - Gail Collins
Below Stairs - Margaret Powell

And from some of my great blogging and writer friends:

Stick a Fork in It - Robin Allen (Out now) PLUS you can get Robin's first book in this culinary adventure spree If You Can't Stand the Heat for FREE on your Kindle right now.

Whipped, Not Beaten - Melissa Westemeier (AKA Green Girl in Wisconsin - mother of three sons so obviously a kindred spirit.)

Being Miss (Blogging friend from England and this book is so well done.)

The Eight Fingered Criminal's Son - William Snyder (Blogging friend) 1600 sold copies needed for a book deal. You can get it now for $3.95 on Kindle.

And for those of you with kids or grandkids, I'm toting this one by my WriterGrrl friend Bernadette Noll Make Stuff Together: 24 Projects to Create as a Family 




Now, as many of you know from your past experience here at this blog, I end up altering my list all summer as I trade books at book club, wander through the library, or just happen to go past that book table at Costco. So it goes in the world of reading.

But, SHARE! What's on your summer reading list?


P.S. Can anyone tell me how to center my header on my blog page?

 

Let's Talk Scrabble

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.  

Victor Frankl

My husband thinks playing Scrabble online is a complete waste of time. He tells me this while he is flipping channels on the television set. I'm thinking there are worse ways to spend my time and I enjoy playing Scrabble. I'm good at it. So, there.

I also understand it is one of those things that distracts you from what is really going on in your life, but for the past year or so, fun distractions have been most welcome in my world. I could have found something else - like a boyfriend, or drugs, even more wine or, God help me, channel changing. But, no, I chose Scrabble. I play with a few of my friends and my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. And when they don't play often enough to satisfy my desire to form words, I choose a random player. From that has come a small group of people I play often.

Many people I know play Words with Friends and I tried that. But cheesy design, too many bells and whistles, and too many cheaters for my taste. Where is the satisfaction in resorting to an app to find the right word for the most points? It's like having the questions to Jeopardy right in front of you while Alex reads the answers.

Not to say there aren't cheaters in Scrabble. If I get into a random game with someone who has an incredible record and consistent scores in the 500's - CHEATER! I opt out of the game and wait for more of a purist.  Plus it is most certainly not like sitting down at the table and playing the real game for there is that little dictionary there that tells me that thone and qi are words. But it is similar to the real game and fun. And, did I say I'm pretty good at it?

But, my fun hiding place has been turned upside down. The past few days it has been hard to get the game onto my screen without freezing. Then, a new game board appeared and advertisements kept popping up. I had to spend quite a while finding my games amid all the clutter and cheese of boxes asking me to invite everyone on my Facebook list to play with me and a bunch of other crap I had no desire to see.  And, the screen looked just like Words with Friends. A mess, indeed.

I may do my best to keep up with the changes in life (I can text. I succumbed to a Kindle), but when I go hide in a Scrabble game, by God, I want to play Scrabble. Not feel like I'm at a carnival with barkers taunting me to come into the tent - and then having to wait 5 seconds before I can click away the ad unless I want to entice 3 of my friends to play Scrabble and then I can be ad-free for one whole week. Wow -- who thought that up?

I voiced my complaint on their feedback bar - after waiting two days for that bar to work. Perusing their discussion lines, I'm not the only one upset. I haven't seen one positive comment. Many are calling for a boycott. I say YES!

Are there better causes? Probably. Is there a more serious essay here that I could develop? Absolutely. Do I care at this moment? No.

Yet another forced change in my life, but this one, nope, this one, I don't have to accept. I'll finish the games I have going. Maybe play once in a while with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, but other than that, I'm done.

Perhaps I'll take up writing in my journal lonesome for my confused thoughts, or working on that unfinished novel, or cleaning my house. (Maybe not that last one.) Or, maybe I'll just play the real game when I get a chance.

Now that's Words with Friends.

Waiting in the Weeds

It's so curious:  one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief.  But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.  

 Colette

Funny how life spins. How you plan that when you reach that certain point in time when a task completed will allow you to move forward, you suddenly discover you haven't finished where you were at all. Can set you right back on your ass. And, there, perhaps the only place to hang out is in the weeds, waiting for another day when it might be a little easier to emerge -- slowly.

Plan to return to my blogging world very soon. School's out for me next week. Several other things to tidy up and then, well, then I will see where the summer takes me. If I'll pull the  weeds out or let them hide around me a little longer. 

Hope all of you are well. I miss your worlds. Hopefully not for much longer.

What Goes Around...

You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back.  

William D. Tammeus

About twenty years ago, I volunteered at a living history farm. I had joined a natural science guild and had the option of working at a nature center or at Pioneer Farm. The farm depicted 1880 in Texas. As the mother of three young boys, that sounded like the best escape for me. Besides, at the nature center, you had to take out the snakes and show the visiting children. Not my thing.

I had two boys in elementary school at the time and my neighbor looked after my youngest while I enjoyed four hours a month dressing up in a long dress and apron. I milked the cow, collected the eggs, fed slop to the pigs, started a fire in the old stove and made pies or chicken stew while showing off chamber pots and corn cob toilet paper to the visiting school children.

Very peaceful for me, those four hours once a month. Loved it.

But, as mothers often discover, peace is a misnomer. Due to the illness of my neighbor, I found myself at the farm with Ian, then two years old. We were at the Tenant Farm that day. A place where the original farmer and his wife raised 12 children. The farmer's mother got to sleep in the only bed. Outdoor kitchen.

On this particular day of volunteering, I was getting the fire going and Ian was washing clothes in a washtub. He'd rinse out the towels and hang them on the clothes line. He had to climb a stool to reach the clothes line and between washing, rinsing, wringing, climbing and hanging up, he was quite busy.

About 9 weeks earlier, eight piglets came into the world and for the past three weeks running with wild abandon around the farm had become their bane. Sort of like a pack of teenagers with nothing structured in their lives. This day they decided to help Ian with the laundry.

As soon as he'd climb the stool to hang a shirt or towel, the pigs would gather at his wash bucket and pull out the item soaking and run off. At first he tried to chase them, but the group of eight ran in circles around him. One could almost hear them laughing as they played Keep Away.

At home, one of the books I was currently reading to Ian was Caps for Sale by Esphyr Solobodkina. In the story, a peddler who sells caps that he carries stacked on his head decides to take a nap under a tree. While he sleeps, a group of monkeys steal his colorful caps and arrange themselves in the branches above. When the peddler awakes, he stands with hands clenched in frustration, berating the wild group to give him back his hats.

Ian resorted to the same tactic, shaking his hands at the mischievious crew. "You pigs you! You give me back my clothes."

Memories. As he relayed the story to his older brothers, so it came that my days of going to the farm alone became a time of volunteering more often, with three boys in tow. Amazingly enough, on one of our visits, the bluebonnets were in bloom and even more amazing, I had a camera in the car. (I know I put this at the beginning, but just had to show it again.)

My kids loved the farm. They planted crops, collected eggs, made cookies, stacked wood, played hide and seek in the barn, fed the pigs, cows, horses and baby chicks while interpreting for crowds of visiting children. They had the run of the place, right along with the pigs. When my parents came for Christmas, we would all volunteer. We depicted a multi-generational family at the Homestead on Christmas Eve. My husband and dad welcomed the walking crowds and my mom played the pump organ while those visiting sang carols.

When she grew tired of pumping, the boys would take turns sitting on the floor pushing the pumps up and down. Somewhere I have a photo of all of us (of course can't find it now.)

And so we come to the point of this tale. Many of you have followed my stories of middle son, Jordan, the Fisheries and Wildlife major on his treks through the world of job hunting. From raising baby deer in south Texas to the wilds of Wyoming and West Texas and trading substitute teaching jobs with me.

A few Saturdays ago, my husband and I returned to Pioneer Farms after quite a few years of absence. Not much had changed other than further improvements on more farm scenes and the addition of a town square.

And some new animals.

While we wandered, guess who showed up walking from town square?

 

 Yup. That's Jordan. The farm hired him three days a week. 

He spends the other days of the week subbing or working landscape. Such is the life for many of our young college graduates. Several jobs. But, oh, how he enjoys this one, nurtured in childhood. Perhaps one good thing I did.

Daughters? Who Needs Them?

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.  

Thornton Wilder

Long, long ago I wrote an essay about my hopes for having a girl child. That with each of my three pregnancies I hoped and dreamed of pink sleepers, ballet classes, and the camaraderie of a female living in my home. With three brothers and no sisters, I yearned for female companionship. I figured that perhaps what I missed in a sister I could find in a daughter.

I worked on that essay for two years. I sent it out to several journals and it became a finalist in two. Finally, one chose it but right before publication a matter came up in regard to the venue and my use of the word penis. It was such the perfect word for the sentence, but the headmaster of verbiage at the publication didn't agree. I would gladly have pulled the word or resupplied something else like dink, wanger, unit, you know, I was willing. Alas, the piece didn't make it into the book and continues to languish in a file cabinet along with many of my other essays that just didn't quite make the cut.

Perhaps a slap in the face to remind me that I didn't ever get a sister and I had three sons. Not like I needed a slap in the face to remember that. But as time went by and I spent my life at ballparks, boy scouts, the men's department, and sports stores, I forgot about a life with a daughter. Besides, my boys provided me with great love.

Daughters - didn't need one.

This past Christmas was a difficult one. Energy for the season wasn't exactly flowing. With the death of my mother the past September, I couldn't quite muster the joy of the season. I did get my cards out, baked some bread, put up decorations, and bought my very first fake tree. You might recall that I wrote how we put it up and the poor thing only had a 23yr old paperplate angel and couple of doves. Pathetic display.

The previous Christmas I had given my new daughter-in-law a kit for knitting a stocking. The style matched all those I had made for myself and the other kids, which was a match for my husbands made by his aunt long ago.

When I gave it to her, I joked that knowing me next Christmas would creep up and I wouldn't have begun. Yes, that kit sat in my knitting basket beside my chair where I reside and 11 months went by before I took it out and began. It had been 20 years since I'd made the last one, so a learning curve was in order. I began with too large of needles  so my gauge was off. But time was clicking by and I had no time to begin anew.

Onto Christmas Eve we gathered early in the afternoon. Daughter-in-law Chelsea and I had tea in my grandmother's china cups. She made sangria for a colorful cocktail. We prepared trays of appetizers. While waiting for dinner, we sat in the family room, the fake tree lit up with its measly collection of store bought candy canes plus an angel and three doves. Still hadn't had the gumption to get out the ornament boxes.

When I mentioned that fact, Chelsea rose with great energy, "I'll do it." I thought she was joking, but no, the boxes were brought in and she spent the next hour or more sorting through the ornaments and making our tree look like a true Christmas tree. My heart warmed like it hadn't in quite some time as I saw her work - and the joy she exuded as she laughed brought lightness to the room. The task that I had dreaded while carrying great weight on my heart, she completed with ease.

Even adding a touch of holiday here and there around the house.

I don't know if everyone needs a daughter, but I am most thankful I have one.

Please visit Chelsea's Blog Somewhere Between Rustic and Shabby

Tuition Sluts

The Rose Bowl is the only bowl I've ever seen that I didn't have to clean.

Erma Bombeck

I know many of you are not football fans, but I am. I have my specific teams like my Alma Mater -- Michigan State.  My parents lived in Green Bay, Wisconsin for 31 years and my kids attended Packer summer practice camps countless times. Packers are my pro team.

My husband, Bob, graduated from University of Colorado. I don't feel much loyalty there. But when my kids went off to college, Bob and I  found ourselves rooting for teams we never would have considered in a million years. Never did we picture our legs hooked together with a stranger or our arms swathed across the back of whomever stood next to us while we swayed and sang "Saw Varsity's horns off." Or that we'd say "Whoop!' after another Fighting Texas Aggie first down.

Then, there we were in Flagstaff, Arizona watching the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks take on the likes of Montana State while we counted as Louie the Lumberjack did pushups on a trampoline to match the score. Not to mention that although the school colors are navy and green, the athletic colors are navy and yellow - verboten to a green and white Michigan State fan. (U of Michigan is blue and yellow - oh, sorry. Maize, she writes with a sarcastic shrug of her shoulders. I don't like Wolverines.)

No surprise that when youngest son, Ian, went off the the University of Alabama, we became fans of the Crimson Tide. We've just had to face the fact that we are tuition sluts. We cheer for whoever is taking our money.

Banner year for Crimson Tide and Green Bay Packer fans. Tide plays for the national championship Monday night. Packers - three games from repeating as Super Bowl champs.

Tomorrow night Bob and I will wear our Alabama shirts and plant ourselves in front of the TV in the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame (basement.) After each first down, we will shake our shakers on the Roll Tide count. 

First Down Alabama - Roll Tide.

Just sayin'.